TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 6
“struck down, but not destroyed”
2 Corinthians 4:9 ESV
WHEN SICKNESS HAPPENS: DOWN BUT NOT OUT
Years ago, singer Bob Carlisle wrote a song about a man who walked passed a monastery every day on his way to and from work. The man often wondered what it would be like to live in such a beautiful cathedral. He resented his own hard life and assumed life inside the cathedral was easy. One day he encountered a priest who had just come from outside the monastery and asked him what it was like to live inside the monastery. The priest replied, “We fall down, we get up, we fall down, we get up and the saints are the just the sinners who fall down and get up.”
We all get knocked down at times. It doesn’t matter your gender, race, age, wealth or religion. But as Christians we are promised that those blows will not “destroy” us. The word “destroyed” in 2 Corinthians 4:9 means to put out of the way entirely, abolish, put an end to ruin, to devote or give over to eternal misery in hell; to perish, to be lost or ruined. The blows will come but they can’t finish us off. It’s a picture of a prize fighter who keeps getting knocked down in the ring but continues to rise time and time again, refusing to quit.
Proverbs 24:16 reads, “for the righteous falls seven times and rises again.” The church is not filled with perfect people. However, the church is filled with people who have fallen and been knocked down but have gotten back up because of God’s grace and God’s power. If you feel “struck down” ask God to give you the grace and power to get back up. Ask someone you know about a time in their life when they felt defeated and how they recovered.
